


Kylmä Sota.

by isolated_killer



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cat Ears, Cat/Human Hybrids, M/M, Past Abuse, Rebels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 14:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2625869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isolated_killer/pseuds/isolated_killer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Totalitarian country Cynosura has abused the rights of the cat society, deemed defective, since the beginning of time. Having gained power over the cat people's reproduction, the Government has since been treating the scared kin as their property, exporting the genus like precious metal. Until a rogue cat boy named Lu Han decides to put an end to their cruel regime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kylmä Sota.

**Author's Note:**

> Kylmä Sota (fi.) - the Cold War.
> 
> he plotline is vaguely based on the [Neo Seoul, 2144](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_%28film%29#Neo_Seoul.2C_2144) story from the sci-fi movie [Cloud Atlas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_%28film%29). For the dictionary and additional needed information, please, check out the notes at the end of the fic. 
> 
> [The theme song of the story](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHeK0Cwr9sg) :3

Lu Han’s stone cold hands were shaking, as he desperately tried to hide them in the too small pockets of his too small coat; stolen from the local warehouse, property of the Human Government, the frail cut that had once been fit for a woman was now ruined by Lu Han’s boyish form, threads pulled loose, fur lining torn. The gloomiest shade of Lu Han’s grey coloured coat helped him stay unnoticed behind the sooty wall at the crossroad that led to the main square where few highrise glass buildings towered over the otherwise inconspicuous landscape.

There, Lu Han thought as he looked out of his momentary hideout spot with a heavy sigh. A few weeks of careful plotting and preparation finally brought him to the ending stage of his plan. Involuntarily, a shudder ran through his body, either out of fear or because of the coldest gusts of wind attacking his body from all the sides, he was no longer sure; tips of his fingers had turned blue from the cold, and his toes seemed to have frosted over.

Autumn outwear for a cruel winter in the city Kylmä of the country Cynosura seemed a ridiculous choice for someone who actually had a choice. For Lu Han, a stray, a cat boy on the run, there was none.

Once, he had been owned himself. Decades of human acceptance and respect made nonsensical in a lapse of two years during which he was constantly made to forget his pride and selfness by a persistent technical human hand that ruled out his own humaneness along with his conscience. Having been driven to the route of escape, the deed punished by law, Lu Han was immediately struck by the realization of just how selfless and human-dependent the Human Government required the cat society to be. Then, a crazy idea arose in Lu Han’s mind.

The idea he seriously doubted as he entered the Kissa Enterprise, black silky locks of his wig falling over his eyes, a big wooly hat bunched up on his head; the carefully structured cute look had always managed to steal the needed affection of the desperate for boy attention human females who worked in the red-tapery positions. A couple of curious eye bats, a stutter of a clumsy apology, fake nervous explanations in an exaggerated accent, coupled with a shy smile, and a chubby blushing human girl was hurrying him into an elevator, up on the Purchase floor.

Lu Han released a shaky breath, forcing his heartbeat to calm down, keeping on a fake soft smile; the first step of the plan had gone fairly easy. Up until the chubby human girl stole a glance at his clothes, as he nervously adjusted the buttons on his coat, involuntarily catching her attention. Mentally, he cursed, but an excited breathy “oh, I am a big fan of retro and vintage, and I know a fellow collector when I see one, I can tell you where to buy the kind of coat I’m wearing,” had the human nodding in a forced polite move, a shadow of bewilderment clear in her expression, cheeks coloured in crimson again as he sent her one awkward wink.

The elevator came to a halt and opened to a yellow wall-papered corridor of similar black wooden doors. Not giving Lu Han even a second to observe the surroundings for possible future plans, the female human sat him into the closest tiny study that contained a desk, cabinet and two chairs, all furniture items of the same black wood. She suggested him some drinks, his saliva tasting like bitter poisonous betrayal at the mention of milk, and shoved a very large book of files into his hands, telling him to choose.

The door behind his back clicked closed with a quiet sound as the human left, but Lu Han could only hear the pump of blood in his ears, as his trembling fingers leafed through the pages that assaulted his sensitive nostrils with a strong smell of disinfectant. Faces of smiling cat boys and girls put under the plastic, basic information in neat cursive slicing through page after page, making Lu Han gasp in shock and anger at the lack of actual character in the explanations given under each name and picture.

Cold sweat exuded on his back, a salty droplet running down his temple from under the curly wig, as he turned another page. A picture of a girl who looked barely seventeen with small black cat ears poking out of her long chemical red hair adorned the page, a stamp of angry red **SOLD** in the corner of the sheet making Lu Han frown in disgust.

_Krystal is a mischievous little kitten that will never let you get bored. Krystal’s presence will make any gathering and party brighter as Krystal twirls in her sunny dance for the pleasure of your guests’ eyes. An untouched beauty like Krystal’s is hard to find. Krystal will become an amazing partner in crime for your children or a luxurious trophy for your ego._

Similar completely faceless examples traveled through the book, each extract of information worse than the previous one. Lu Han felt like he was looking through a furniture catalogue rather than choosing a friend his supposedly human alter ego was supposed to take care of for a lifetime. Cat society was no friends; they were posed as a pretty item, the property you can show off to other worthless humans like yourself. Lu Han felt dizzy as more ill-worded things caught his attention on every single page.

_Minseok is that beast that you would only be able to tame if you invite him to your bed._

_Henry is a perfect cuddle partner for rainy days._

_Minho is your choice for long grocery shopping trips, his athletic form making all passersby jealous._

_Nana will love to drown you in attention, be you a chubby prince or a charming beggar._

Lu Han pushed the book away, needing some air, his eyes stinging from the strong smell of disinfecting liquids every page seemed to be imbued in, hands hurriedly wiping the sweat escaping down his neck in few tiny trickles. His cat ears mercilessly ached and itched, pressed under the double protection of wig and oversized winter hat, no chance to rid himself of his disguise just yet. He scratched down the hat angrily, taking off a tiny bit of the itch, his mind plagued with the still fresh recollections.

His first owner was a human woman of a very old age. Having been bought out young and naïve, treasured for his “blue blood”, years later forced to regret and hate this natural trait of his, grown-up Lu Han could only remember her crumpled face, the mistress’ name lost in the maze of his vague memories of strict housepet discipline and prohibition of talking.

It was the house cook, a Kiinan human man named Gao, who taught the endearing boy of cat nature how to speak the human man’s native language, different from the common one, happy to have found a soul to share his lifetime with; he was the one to give Lu Han a Kiinan human name, ignorant of his petname. Years later, Lu Han would realize that, by teaching the human lady’s “cat” to speak and giving “it” his own pet name, the male human had just gotten his revenge on the old strict hag.

Without wasting any more time, Lu Han pursed his lips and determinately turned the fat book over, opening the last case file in the suggested wide choice. The underdogs are always at the back. The ones who cause trouble. The ones who never get picked by the humans because worthless beings like them never bother to waste time to reach the end of the book.

_Chen is a grown tomcat of rebelling spirit, suitable for a person willing to sacrifice their time to deal with his naturally attractive mysterious side. A cat conundrum. Chen is the one you look for if you seek excitement and danger in your life. Suitable for people, inclined for doing extreme sports._

The page contained a picture of a boy with sharp face features, messy fur of his cat ears peeking through a short sleek haircut, thin lips curled in a cheeky smile. A cat conundrum personified, judging by the mischievously squinted eyes, Chen seemed like the type of guy who would be up to overthrow a ruling ministry while vandalizing local monuments with aerosol paints. Having no other option but try to take the wrong sow by the ear, Lu Han made his decision, praying that he had read into Chen correctly.

Just then the door to the study opened to reveal a bored looking human man with a folder of documents necessary for the legal purchase. In his soft colourless voice, he asked him if he had managed to choose a “pet” of interest, allowing Lu Han the satisfaction to imagine ripping the human’s unworthy tongue out.

As the human settled into the chair opposite him, fretting with the cloud of papers in his hands, Lu Han observed the male human’s unhurried movements, seeing an unpleasant resemblance in the clerk’s expressionless face to his second pseudo-owner. Years of undisturbed existence had ended when Lu Han was inherited into the family of the mistress’s prosperous human son who bore no interest in pets, greedy only for his business; the one who took a keen liking to Lu Han’s boyish charm and attractive looks was the man’s human wife.

The one who pushed Lu Han to the law violation, memories of who made him wish to wipe out the whole human population. But that was months ago, at the moment the only wish sobered up Lu Han bore was to stop the oppression of the cat society’s rights.

The disguised cat boy smiled coyly as he pointed at the Chen page at the end of the book; his attentive eye watched for any kind of recognition and displeasure in the male human’s eyes, searching for anything that could prove he had made the right choice. But the human himself seemingly had never interacted with the individuals from the cat society, as he carefully began the tedious paperwork, unknowing to the fact that he was the driving force behind the first step in the history of cat society resistance war.

҉

If Lu Han was asked later, he would claim that greatest relief was the only feeling that claimed and overwhelmed him the moment he got to see his Jongdae in reality, standing there with a shy look on his face, in flesh and blood. Heavy boots on his feet, immaculate jeans of deep-blue, a new puffy winter jacket, cute wooly hat and an embarrassedly red face poking out of the heap of knitted scarf. Jongdae was half a head smaller than Lu Han in height, looking up at him with big curious eyes framed with long eyelashes, a shy smile on his curly lips.

If asked at the exact moment when he actually squeezed Jongdae’s hand in his and breathed in the other’s presence by his side, the feeling could only be described as happiness. He was not alone anymore. He would never be alone from then on.

҉

Lu Han dragged the obedient cat boy through the labyrinth of the dimly lit streets, squeezing the silently following guy’s mittened hand as if prepared for a sudden attack from every dark corner. He could not believe they had let them go, could not believe that his plan had succeeded and no one had been able to see through his lie. Lately, most of his dreams had been about humans discovering him, with his downy tail wrapped around his waist and his awkwardly poking out ears; evil humans had been torturing him in his vivid nightmares of failure. He was sure they would get them and take his Jongdae away from him, he was sure that the human army was already set onto them, he was sure they knew.

But as the two of them hurriedly moved along tiny back streets and dingy alleys, trying to foul their trails in the snow among multicolored three-storeyed buildings, there was no sign of possible gunned chase or human spies sneaking in the shadows as they quickly crossed lit up roads to disappear behind narrow passages. The heavy blizzard seemed to follow their backs, helping Lu Han seclude his new friend from alien eyes and get him to the hideout as quickly and safely as possible.

As they rounded another corner, Lu Han came to an abrupt stop, making his wobbly Jongdae almost knock into him; busy with checking both sides of the street for unwanted stray passersby, he missed the confused look on the boy’s face. He dropped the small bag of the other’s belongings onto the snow powdered pavement and darted into the dark space between two huge garbage bins.

“Pardon, master, but what are you… we doing?”

The boy’s voice sounded muffled, blown away by the whirlpools of snow, but Lu Han’s sensitive ears still managed to catch the uncertainty in Jongdae’s words; and the despised name which made his insides turn colder than the outside temperature. He allowed himself a momentary pause to restrain the annoyance that managed to rise the fur on his itching ears, gave out a long sigh just to crouch and start pulling off the plastic litter bags which he had hidden there that morning. Seconds of struggling with the resistant tape had Lu Han curse under his breath, but soon, triumphant, he dove out of the area between stinky boxes, bringing along an old looking shabby bicycle.

He smiled at the surprise on his Jongdae’s rosy face, not daring to open his mouth; he was afraid that once he started talking, he would not be able to stop himself in his eagerness to reveal all his secrets and plans to his new friend. So, without uttering a word, still smiling, he climbed onto the bicycle with the boy’s bag on the steering wheel and awkwardly reached for his Jongdae’s hand, pulling him towards the bicycle frame behind his back. The boy frowned at the strange antics of the man who had bought him; nevertheless he nodded and, tightly clutching Lu Han’s waist, tried to get as comfortable as the tiny non-seat allowed him in the snow storm of weather. They kicked off onto a speedy shaky ride down the wet pavement, up deserted streets to the very suburbs of the cold city.

҉

Exhausted by the bumpy bicycle road, his patience worn thin by the constant itching of his squished cat ears and tail, Lu Han stumbled through the big oak door, dragging along his wary friend by the sticking out fringes of his scarf. Rendered almost immobile from the cold wind and the gradually lowering temperatures further into the suburbs they had got, at the moment Lu Han’s face felt like a frozen mask, chipped lips cracking, eyes watering. Without removing his upper clothing, he hurried to switch on the few different lamps placed randomly around the room, and was trying to strike up a match with his blue frozen fingers, cursing under his breath, when two mittened palms stopped his unsuccessful attempts.

“Master, let me do it,” in the quietness of the room, Lu Han finally managed to actually listen to Jongdae’s voice for the first time. It sounded high, with a nice melodic ring to it, a voice that left a sort of aftertaste, one that left you craving to hear more. “Let me do whatever you need to do, master. You’re shaking, maybe you should change out of your wet clothes?” His voice held a certain note of firmness, but his mouth curled up in a careful polite smile that did not lack friendliness; Lu Han stared as the tails of the boy’s lips naturally went up and, after a long pause, fell down when Jongdae received no response from Lu Han. Confused by his new owner, he released Lu Han’s hands, dropping his eyes in an act of supposed accepted guilt. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have touched you without your permission, master. I just wanted to help.”

Scandalized by Jongdae’s name calling, his tired brain like cotton, he could only manage to open his mouth in displeasure and blink tiredly at the worried looks Jongdae kept throwing to the poor décor of the quarters. Having taken in the few furniture items scattered around the room along with forgotten garbage, he then glanced at Lu Han. The exchange of judging looks continued for a few awkward moments, before Jongdae opened his pointy mouth again. “Excuse me for being rude in advance, master, but are you, by any chance, mute?” The uttered supposition left Lu Han spluttering, shaking him out of his frozen state, igniting him into action again.

“No, no, why did you think that? No, I am not mute, no. Listen, could you stop calling me that offensive word, Jongdae? Please, never call me that again. My name is Lu Han, by the way, yes, nice to meet you, now we’re friends,” he could hear himself rambling but he could not stop the flood of words as his fingers felt warm enough to be able to pull the buttons out of holes on his wet coat. He noticed Jongdae nodding dazedly, carefully catching whatever Lu Han had to say, as the boy started unzipping his heavy winter wear. Lu Han smiled in approval, as he tugged off his sweater and pants that were a size too big for him but managed to hug his shaggy tail tightly wound around his middle. “You call me Lu Han, and I will call you Jongdae, okay? You need a human name, unfortunately Chen sounds an awful lot like a pet name…”

“It’s a pity that you don’t like my name, master, I’ve been using it since my birth, but your wish is everything, if you want to call me some other name, please, go ahead... what in the dog damned hell?”

The black silky wig finally off his sweaty head, Lu Han stood in the middle of the room desperately scratching his itchy cat ears, the fluffy light brown fur sticking out of the mess of his mussed hair. His downy tail curled, now free of the tight restraining belt, and Lu Han rubbed the unruly fur back into place, trying to make the flicking thing look less imposing, having always been embarrassed of how awkwardly messy and big it was.

But at the moment, the impressive size of his tail and ears glared at the other cat boy, who stood completely frozen, wooly hat and winter jacket lying forgotten on the nearby chair. The unmoving boy’s little neat black ears twitched as they pressed down in alarm, his tail of sleek, thick black fur glistening of health hidden between his skinny legs. A moment of silent staring as Lu Han’s eyes widened in question, and Jongdae’s shocked expression changed into one of complete disbelief.

“What are those things on your head?” He said in a barely audible whisper, frowning as he took in Lu Han’s form, hunched over in confusion and fear of his new owner.

“My cat ears.”

Jongdae released a hollow gasp and started backing away into the corner of the room, further away from Lu Han who had finally realized the reasons behind his cat friend’s weird behaviour and was trying to approach the boy with a careful smile on his face. “It’s okay, Jongdae, it’s okay, I saved you from the Government, it will be okay from now. As long as we stick together…”

“Get away from me, freak!”

Cat reflexes on par, the two cat males reached the entrance door at the same time; mere seconds into dangerously fluffed up tails and cat ears on point, Lu Han slammed his newly acquired unwilling amigo in crime into the corridor wall and hissed spit at the boy’s flaring nostrils. Height versus sturdiness; Lu Han towered over the struggling boy, pressing his small but strong shoulders to the cold concrete. They continued hissing at each other until the taller cat boy put an abrupt end to their pointless fight; careful, knowing knuckles knocked into Jongdae’s throat and the boy slipped out of Lu Han’s hands onto the floor, clutching his neck in pain, pitiful guttural noises echoing inside the empty room.

“I can’t believe that we just fought. I’m sorry for your throat, I didn’t really plan to hurt you. You just… seemed so determined to leave.” Lu Han winced as he backed away to give space to the cat boy who had curled in on himself, his tail tightly wound around his shaking frame. The stale taste of belated realization that Lu Han had begun with the wrong words suddenly struck him. Awkwardly, he coughed and talked in quiet voice. “I understand that you’re just a little shocked about the whole thing. I’m quite in a shock myself. That I succeeded, that my plan turned out okay.”

Rendered with no visible or vocal response from Jongdae, Lu Han continued. “I do owe you a proper explanation. Basically, I’m a runaway cat. I had human owners all my life. They made me do disgusting things. Things that made me realize how awful and messed up the whole pet-owner dynamics are in the human Government’s system. Basically. I want to help our cat society. I want humans to realize that we are not property they can use however they want. And… you’re the first cat who I managed to save.”

Jongdae still refused to show any semblance of attention or comprehension of Lu Han’s words, but he stopped shaking, and the other boy allowed himself a relieved sigh at that small detail; in his emotionally weakened state, he had completely missed the tale-tell annoyed fluffing of Jongdae’s tail.

“I desperately want, no, need us to get along, Jongdae. I want you to be my friend,” Lu Han showed a small smile and stretched a hesitant hand towards the cat boy only to have him flinch away and hiss angrily again, the hostile gesture making Lu Han feel miserable and realize just how exhausted he was. “Please. I won’t hurt you again. I just panicked.”

“Did you ever stop to think, even for a moment, about my feelings? That you made an unprepared person an unwilling criminal? That you could, I don’t know, actually ruin someone’s life with your stupid stunt?” Jongdae glared at the floor, not daring to look shocked Lu Han in the eye just yet. Slowly, he stretched out his skinny legs, his tail immediately curling around his thigh in a visible attempt to calm himself down, but his ears continued to twitch nervously as he continued to mumble in a bitter whisper. “A runaway. Glorious. Owned by a cat, more like, owned by life. Twenty years of waiting wasted in one stupid day. My life is over.”

“Stop saying such horrible things. Don’t be so dramatic,” Lu Han reprimanded him loudly with a deep frown settled on his face, always stubborn about the validity of his ideas and assumptions. He refused to believe that after months of diligent plotting and planning, the realization of his project could face the possibility of ruining because of the ‘asshole’ cat factor he had never taken into account. Furious, Lu Han hurriedly stood up and pulled up limp Jongdae by his elbow. “We’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say. When they find us, you’ll just be killed on the spot. I, on the other hand, might get imprisoned for a lifetime.”

“Stop it. It must be your tiredness and plain shock over the environment change talking. I think we’d better eat and sleep early. Let’s talk in the morning. I’ll prove to you that I’m a good guy, right now I’m not in my best shape,” feeling hollow inside, Lu Han still managed to give Jongdae a big encouraging smile even though the boy continued to glare at the random furniture items, ignoring Lu Han’s existence in the room. “I promise you that no one will find you here, in our hideout. It’s the only safe place in whole Kylmä.”

Lu Han returned to silent Jongdae’s side with a small plastic container filled with cold tuna and anchovy sandwiches and forced it into the boy’s hands; the cat gave him an empty look of resignation as smiley Lu Han shook a small bottle of milk dripping with condensation in front of his nose. Like a ghost, he followed Lu Han into the corridor maze of the strange hideout house where several same-looking doors stood gaping, showing their insides with scattered things covered in blankets of dust and filings. They entered one of the spacious rooms that had been swept clean, pure blue bedspread on the mattress built into the wooden skeleton of the bedframe. An aging black piano with greasy yellow ivory keys stood in the corner of the room along with one lonely chair and a small bed table. The only sources of light in the room were the big window and a lamp.

“It’s a little.. minimalistic. You’re free to renovate it however you want. I’m in the next room if you need anything. Bathroom is the door next to mine, use as much hot water as you want tonight,” Lu Han noticed as he gently put down his Jongdae’s bag on the chair. “I do not advise you to try and run away because.. well, it would just be suicidal and stupid.”

Barely standing straight on his two feet, exhausted physically and emotionally, Lu Han dropped another pointless smile at not looking Jongdae and wobbled to the door, his eyes closing from tiredness.

“Just so you know, not everyone can be a hero. Not everyone can afford being reckless like you are. You made me into a criminal. I’m not sure I know how to forgive you,” Chen whispered to his hunched back in a hollow shaking voice, making exhausted Lu Han’s lips purse. Unknowing of the fact, they both looked up to the spider web covered ceiling and held childish tears of fear in.

҉

The early morning came in the form of cold canned fish, a stale bun and another steamed up bottle of milk awkwardly dumped at the foot of Jongdae’s bed by smiling Lu Han. Leaving angry imprints on the green bottle-glass, Jongdae crawled out of his blanket nest to snatch the snacks just to disappear under the duvet seconds later, allowing Lu Han only a brief peek at the boy’s messed up triangular ears. Wrapping himself better into the woolen shawl as he sent a long displeased look at the glistening ice of the windows covered in hoarfrost, Lu Han sat down on the chair and waited.

“So,” he said loudly after a minute long silence, only ruined by muffled sounds of the bread crust crunching under Jongdae’s fingers, “it seems like you’ve gotten comfortable here. It’s not too cold? Is your mattress alright? How is your pillow? The key is to have a pillow that supports your neck well so that you can wake up early, feeling well-rested and…”

“Open it for me,” a muffled demand, and Chen’s thin hand, dressed in an oversized black sleeve poked out of the piles of bedspreads, holding out the tin with fish in tomato sauce. Lu Han scrambled to help, noting how Jongdae let their fingers touch as he took the tin to get the nourishing breakfast opened; Lu Han used the chance to inspect his new friend’s palm, not finding the pale unblemished skin and neatly cut clean nails particularly unusual. He then hurried to put the food back into the waiting unsuspecting hand and, as the sneaky limb hid under the duvet again, cleared his throat.

“Be careful not spill the sauce, it’s very hard to get it out of the sheets later, trust me I know,” Lu Han gave out a hearty chortle but, as he received no response, he removed the smile off his face and continued. “I thought that we could talk. Get acquainted. I tell you my story, you tell me yours.” The pause was ignored by Jongdae who either hated talking with his mouth full or was just a first-class asshole. Lu Han was starting to bet on the second option, bitterly frowning at the arrogance of the other boy. Without further ado, Lu Han began talking, trying not to heed the negative vibes, coming from the big lump of Jongdae’s blankets, which made him squeamish.

“My name is Lu Han. As you’ve probably guessed it’s not a pet name. My only human friend gave it to me when I was still a kitten, and I’ve accepted it as my real name since then. It’s a Kiinan name, I also learned Kiinan language thanks to that friend. Of course, he’s not the reason I ripped my hair out wishing all humans dead just a few months ago, no. I had two humans own me. First one was an old human woman, but I remember very little of her. Just bits and pieces, here and there. Like, for example, I wasn’t allowed into some rooms, but there wasn’t anything interesting in them anyway. I learned that later after I had realized that bans existed to be broken,” Lu Han smiled bitterly at the flooding memories, suddenly feeling as if a cold gust of wind hit him in the gut, his thin fingers pricking from the frost, nails blue, and he pulled the itchy wool tighter around his body.

“Making a long story short, my problems started when the old human died and her human son inherited me into his family. He had an older human wife who couldn’t have children. It was an arranged marriage. She had an extraordinary personality. She was into fishing and hunting, and she smoked tobacco and wore men suits all the time. Unfortunately, she also liked me very much. In a way, I was her favourite plaything, living in a sort of golden cage. I could get whatever delicacies I wanted, but only if I acted the “proper” way. She made me do very ugly things I wish I could forget,” Lu Han squeezed his eyes shut, whishing the nightmares away but the images stubbornly came back, night after night, always creeping at the back of his mind like vultures over weakened prey.

“I wish it was easy, forgetting things and living a life of a hermit here, because everyone considers me dead anyway. But the prospect of wasting my life as a pretend human being disgusts me so much, I can’t sleep at night. I can’t forget who I am, and I can’t forgive what humans made me do. Maybe, it’s just not in my nature, - forgiving things. Some things can’t be forgiven,” at Lu Han’s last words, the bedspread moved, and a blue bump the size of Jongdae’s head appeared on the wrinkly surface. The boy was clearly listening, turned away as he stared at the whitewashed wall. It made Lu Han’s breath hitch as he carefully tried to choose his next words out of the jumbled panicked mess inside his head at the unexpected reaction.

“So I’ve been working on a plan. A revolutionary project. I have a lot of ideas, calculations, I had time to learn about details of the Government’s system because my human owner was working for them. I had stolen some of his books and papers, I read them all while I was still imprisoned at that house. I read a lot on how the Kissa Enterprise works as well, when I risked my life sneaking into the Kylmä Library. That’s how I managed to buy you out,” Lu Han made a meaningful pause for effect, desperate for any kind of reaction from the other boy. “What I have is knowledge. What I need is people. More allies. Allies like you, Jongdae.”

Lu Han had so much to offer at that moment of vulnerable trust put onto the cat boy. He desperately thrived for a positive response, for understanding, for the support of ideas he had never had the chance to receive from anyone else. He needed a shoulder to lean on; having hidden himself away, worked into a crazy frenzy driven with the wishes to finally launch his projects, now finally faced with the wildest success in the names of the deceived Government and purchased cat boy, he wished for a deafening applause. But as Jongdae’s head moved back into the cocoon of his bedspread, rendering Lu Han of bated breath with no reaction, his hopes for the encouragement crushed.

“What’s your pet name?” A careful collected whisper from the blankets, backed up by the hollow rattle of licked clean cutlery falling onto the floor from beneath the duvet. Lu Han stared at the green glass as if it was laughing at him, feeling a vice grip of hopelessness on his heart.

“Amaryllis. My pet name was Amaryllis,” he replied dispassionately, his expression guarded.

“So you’re an aristocrat.”

Lu Han blinked at the little notes of surprise and mockery dripping from Chen’s voice, and pursed his lips, frowning at the faceless mess of bed sheets. He felt like he was being judged for a crime he had never meant to do, as if Jongdae knew a joke Lu Han had never had the chance to hear. He could not understand nor believe that anyone would judge him on the principle of his origin; a second into the belated realization that Jongdae could develop one more dislike for him because of his “blue blood”, and Lu Han was hurriedly opening his mouth to defend himself, but it was too late.

“Amaryllis, could you, please, leave? I want to sleep. I’m a cat after all. That’s what I do.”

Lu Han squeezed his eyes shut, boiling up in anger, his downy tail fluffed up, cat ears on point, an act of aggression never noticed by Chen’s cold miserable lump on the bed.

҉

Lu Han knocked a cheerful tune on the dirty black of Jongdae’s door, his knuckles leaving clear imprints on the dust; rendered with no response, he called out for the boy, his voice - full of fake playfulness, his hopeless annoyance given away by the constant flicking of his tail. Having gotten no reaction from the inside, driven by the complete deafening silence mocking him for his overzealous enthusiasm, Lu Han pulled the door open.

“You came out once to go to the bathroom, and didn’t even acknowledge my existence. The fact that I don’t even deserve a hello from you makes me sad, I won’t lie,” wiping his smudged knuckles clean on his spotty pants, Lu Han stared into peculiar dark shadows, created by the sipping through moonlight of the early fallen evening. Most northern parts of Cynosura never got to be favoured by much sunlight, especially not at the autumnal time of the year.

The lump on the bed, that was starting to remind Lu Han of a useless sack of potatoes, moved but allowed self not to utter a single word. Lu Han gave out a deep sigh, putting his fists that ached to make a dent in a wall, into his stretched out pockets.

“You should eat, at least. By law or this society’s moral, I cannot be your master or maid, for a fact, so I will not be bringing your supper here. Come and eat with me in the living room. Or make an effort and pick up your own food, at least,” Lu Han suggested in a soft tone, not letting himself sound hostile, as he gave the boy a chance to reply.

A pause, and the muffled sounds of crinkled paper were heard from the bed, followed by Chen’s thin hand throwing a few chocolate wrappers onto the floor in a pointed matter of rude arrogance. Lu Han pursed his lips to pale whiteness, his nostril flaring, one of his hands flying up to squeeze his tail.

“Very well,” he said loudly, slamming the door shut, whispering a spiteful, “brat,” in a small voice so the stubborn potato sack a wall apart would not hear him.

҉

Frozen morning came and brought wintery winds and arctic draughts into the big house. Lu Han snatched his chance at seeing Jongdae’s swollen sleepy face as he walked into the boy’s room unannounced, at the early hours of dawn, carrying a gigantic woolen blanket for extra heat and another hopeful attempt at a friendly smile. He whispered a soft greeting into the frosted air, afraid of nudging the cat awake when he noticed the tale tell fluttering of Jongdae’s eyelids; the boy was still balancing on the edge of slumber and reality, his left furry ear twitching at the particularly interesting part of his dream.

Not heeding any thoughts of his own creepiness, Lu Han leaned over to inspect Jongdae’s face. Curious by nature, ridiculed by the unexpected vulnerability of such a seemingly wary person, Lu Han’s eyes scanned over the smooth cheeks, high cheekbones, tiniest dark spots on the boy’s straight nose, a mole on his left eyebrow. The dark tips of the boy’s long eyelashes tangled, weaving the wish to touch them right into Lu Han’s mind. The upturned tails of Jongdae’s mouth curved want into Lu Han’s heart, awakening a mischievous crave to feel them move with his fingers. Lu Han swatted at his own curious tail as a means of distraction, moving away not to scandalize the other by their proximity when he opened his eyes.

“Jongdae, I brought you a blanket for heat,” he called out as he pulled the grey sea of fabric over the blue sky of the bedspread, making the boy jump in surprise. Disoriented, Jongdae stared at Lu Han’s face with unseeing eyes, quickly mumbling quiet thanks in a small obedient voice; Lu Han shrugged off the weird behaviour, pushing the itchy wool right into Jongdae’s nose, giggling as he teased the sleep away from the frowning boy. “Jongdae, you still won’t eat breakfast with me?”

But as the cat boy had slowly started to come in terms with the surrounding him reality, his features immediately hardened, making the amicable curves of his mouth disappear, and he turned away to the wall. “Don’t call me Jongdae. You’re not my owner, so you don’t get to change my name. I’m Chen.”

“You hope you realize that you’re just making this difficult for your own self?” Lu Han said, exasperated over the boy’s antics.

“Was it ever supposed to be easy?!” Chen replied in a constrained voice, a hysterical hitch resounding in the room as the boy tried to bury himself in the greys and blues of his bedspreads in a pathetic attempt to get away from Lu Han. Having no strength to fight with the other, Lu Han walked out of the room, realizing that the frustrated cat boy needed something more than failed jabbing attempts at peace talks, his downy tail curved behind his back in a determined furry line.

҉

As the evening thriftily rolled out on the blood orange sky, pierced by a hundred shreds of cotton clouds, Lu Han’s cheerful person burst into Jongdae’s room, brightly smiling, holding a big box in his hands. To his amused surprise, for once Jongdae had decided against pretending to be asleep, sitting on his bed with a book, huddled into his impossibly crumpled blankets close to the lamp, casting eerie lumpy shadows on the walls. Without much ado, Lu Han dropped the box on the floor with a deafening crash and marched to the window, leaving behind loud scratching sounds with the spiked soles of his winter boots.

“It smells funny in here,” he remarked offhandedly and opened the window with a strong push to squeaking framework, deserving an immediate spiteful ‘you smell funny’ retort from the other. The words made Lu Han turn his head and smile in faked apology, astonishing peeking at him Jongdae with his unlikely reaction. “Sorry, it must be the scent of tobacco. I hope you don’t mind.”

“You smoke?” The boy asked in genuine surprise, eyes widening, but a second later, the put upon indifference returned back to his face, and his gaze dropped back to the inky lines in the book. “That’s one disgusting habit to have. Bad for your health.”

“Would you really care about my health if I did actually smoke?” Lu Han gave out a short laugh at his non-humorous joke, as he came over to stand near the bed, his towering figure making Jongdae blink up nervously; unceremoniously, Lu Han threw the mysterious box in front of the other cat, Jongdae hurriedly moving to take the book away in fear of getting pages crumpled. “I don’t smoke, I just take sniffs at it. I’m addicted to the smell. My owner made me smell it for hours so I would get used to the scent and not wrinkle my nose every time she leaned in. Basically, she made me an addict, I’d been a passive smoker for a few years. I do wish it didn’t obtund my sense of smell so much, but can’t help it.”

The seriousness of the words, said in such a offhanded light manner, made Jongdae drop his gaze somewhat shamefully; his eyes mirrored the unavoidable guilt for judging a person he had not even made an effort to get truly acquainted with, but he still was not sure if he was ready to be okay with his “ruined” life just yet. So he let Lu Han fuss over the box that stood on his pillow, quiet, until the other boy had dumped a number of different wigs on his lap, telling him to choose.

“What for?” Confused, he touched a long haired one of colour brunette with the tips of his fingers, feeling the coarse synthetic hairs; his cat ears suddenly twitched in a scared act of belated understanding, his neat mouth opening in surprise. Jongdae then crossed his arms in a stubborn manner, refusing to look up at still rummaging in the box Lu Han, secretly wary that the sight of the other’s seemingly honest smile could make him give in. Generally curious by nature, Chen could not deny the picked up interest at the prospect of venturing out into the city; but it was his fear and pride that made him reply negatively again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, yes, you are. We are going out to have a meal in the city. You refuse to leave your room, call me a criminal, act like a sack of potatoes, so I hope that a walk to town, on your own, free of the watch or orders from humans would make your realize what kind of opportunities I’ve given you, stubborn cat.”

When Lu Han pulled on the stale sweaty covers to get the boy out of his self-made bed nest, Jongdae yelled out his deafening refusal that resounded through the whole room, fading away only in the corridor. His voice was proving to be as powerful as Lu Han had imagined; having fallen into a trap of secret obsession over the boy’s peculiar manner of speech, tired of the dead like quietness of the past two days, Lu Han enjoyed any noise created by the other, be it loud cursing or yelps of complaints.

Managing to keep a calm smile on his face as if no ruckus was actually happening and he did not have to deal with a struggling hissing cat boy, Lu Han grabbed Chen by his elbow, pulled him into an upright position, thin socks onto the frozen wooden floor, shaking him once to stop his attempts at jumping back onto the bed. At a certain point, scandalized Chen’s nails came into an uncomfortable proximity with his face as the disoriented boy fought for his freedom, tail and ears fluffed out of their neat glistening glory, but Lu Han had none of that. One strong tug, and Chen was standing in the middle of the room with his pajama bottoms pooling at his feet, unmoving in the claws of the full-body shock at the treatment.

The sight of the boy’s grey worn-out spotty underwear made Lu Han frown in distaste, as he tugged on the hem of Chen‘s dirty baggy top. “Take off your clothes, we need to wash them. You can’t wear a pair of underwear for three days straight, it’s awful,” he told Chen who death glared at him as he slapped Lu Han’s unceremonious fingers off the cute plaits hanging down his underwear’s elastic band. Lu Han sneered at the restricting move, winking at the unamused boy just for the sake of watching him sizzle. “Either you get properly dressed by yourself, or I dress you. Also, we need to wrap this fellow around your waist, I don’t trust him not to walk out announced at the most inappropriate of moments.”

Those deadly words mumbled, Lu Han touched his smart hand to the core of Chen’s tail, feeling the warm silkiness of the short fur, as he squeezed the muscle in a quick move; Chen’s absolutely brutal hissing reaction resulted in a bruise Lu Han’s shoulder was sporting a few moments later, the boy’s fist proving to bear a ridiculous amount of strength in the moments of threatened abuse. Lu Han clutched at his arm, frowning from the pain, as he decided that the skill could become incredibly helpful during their future endevours.

“Don’t you touch me like that ever again,” Chen whispered in a cold threatening voice, not dropping his death stare, hissing when Lu Han raised his teasing hand in a pretended innocent attempt to fix the boy’s uneven collar. “Okay, leave the room, I’ll get dressed quickly. Please.”

But as he gave the other cat boy a little happy nod of approval, and marched out, boots cheerfully squeaking, a bitter quiet “pervert” slapped Lu Han in the back of his mind, making his tail fly up in annoyance.

҉

Barely twenty minute walk into the less populated streets of Kylmä suburbs never rang a pleasant bell in Lu Han’s memories; struggling out of frozen snowdrifts or wallowing through the swampy mud, a self-proclaimed lonesome warrior had always managed to continue his way to the city, down the familiar pathway in the fields that surrounded the Northern capital. Had it been the sun playing on the melting icicles, random sunlight spots blinding his eyes, or starry sky with incredible multicoloured palette of polar lights stealing his foggy breath away, Lu Han had never found that road particularly pleasing; regardless of the untouched beauty of Cynosura’s nature, freezing winds had always been the area’s weather condition by involuntary choice.

Where the helplessly windy fields ended, empty streets fogged up with evaporations from the local shops began. The peculiarly structured suburbs made up of multicoloured buildings of same build glittered with bright homey lights; Lu Han loved Kylmä at evenings, the fascinating subdued atmosphere casting a calming spell over his impaired nerves, allowing him a momentary pause of pretend rest in the seemingly poorly inhabited alleys. He loved the lights, loved the twinkling of confluent oranges and yellows, consistent ochres of street lamps; he created a theater of light play for himself, refusing to acknowledge the repugnant human existence hiding behind every shining window.

But a trip to his favourite place burdened with the necessity to drag an unwilling cat person through a wild snowstorm had to top Lu Han’s non-existent personal rating of worst journeys. Sticky snow flakes successfully obscured the view of the path learned by heart, winter boots drowning in the sea of fresh snow, as Lu Han led grumbling Jongdae, tightly holding onto the frowning boy’s wrist. They fought through the blizzard to get to the edge of the fields, constantly sweeping gusts of freezing wind doing nothing to Jongdae’s foul moods.

As they entered the alarmingly crowded for a late evening hour streets, Lu Han unexpectedly found himself whispering warnings to the sincerely fascinated boy, tugging him forward up the street, cursing his own shortsightedness for having allowed Jongdae to wear a blond wig to mock him and their safety. Now distracted by every little mundane human thing, Jongdae was attracting too much unwanted attention, as he stumbled over his own feet in attempts to see everything. Lu Han had to bodily mold the interestedly looking around cat boy through the little door of the usually deserted at that hour Kahvila diner, tugging him into the corner of the dimly lit room.

As they settled down on the crude wooden benches, they were approached by a human teenage girl with her thick black hair in two messy plaits; she was carefully writing down Lu Han’s requested meal for two, when her eye caught Jongdae with his curly blond wig who was constantly moving around, turning his head in every direction in an effort to look over the whole mostly wooden interior. She giggled at his strange antics, teasingly commenting on the beauty of his hair, seemingly nosey enough to meddle into the business of her visitors. To Lu Han’s cold sweat inducing horror, Jongdae froze on the spot, his eyes widening as, for the first time in his life, a human stranger addressed him; he looked positively dashing as his wig had travelled lower on his forehead, sitting askew under the woolen hat Lu Han had prohibited him from taking off.

“He’s never been here before, so he’s feeling a little out of his element, excuse him,” he smiled charmingly, hurriedly putting his cute human boy image on, as he blinked up at her, his eyelashes whispering innocence over his cheeks, and the human girl bit on her lip, attracted as she went away to fetch their order. Lu Han released a long shaky sigh and then noticed Jongdae throwing him a disapproving look.

“What a charmer,” he whispered angrily, as if he could not believe that Lu Han would allow himself such a crime of interaction with a human being, or, as Lu Han secretly suspected, as if he could be envious that the older cat could put up an act with so much ease, habitually believable in his human boy game. ”Where did you get the money, charmer bomb?”

The question made Lu Han drop his fake smile as he quickly turned his head to check for possible unwanted listeners; he frowned as he yanked on Jongdae’s wrist to make the boy lean in for a conversation not meant for any passersby’ ears. Jongdae’s expression was a picture of the ultimate distrust as he stubbornly slapped Lu Han’s reaching fingers away, adjusting his own wig as he pleased, making the yellow synthetic curls cascade over his shoulders in uneven amounts. Lu Han pursed his lips at the shown arrogance and gripped the boy’s wrist hard, capturing his attention, as they looked at each other, eye to eye.

“I borrowed quite a large sum from the human who owned me. He thinks they’re buried on the bottom of the sea, along with my dead body. I also borrowed a few things from the warehouse, and sell them one by one when I get the chance. I had to sell most part of my collection and take most of the money from my savings to buy you out.”

“You’ve been to the warehouse!” Jongdae whispered heatedly, horrified but at the same time genuinely surprised, regarding Lu Han with reverence, having heard too many unpleasant stories and rumours from the folk to be capable of judging with nonchalance. The dangers closely following the possible theft from the warehouse were largely heard of; the warehouse had always beenunanimously considered the property of Government, despite its supposed serving for public necessities by legal papers, the fact disregarded by the authorities. “You actually broke into the Governmental estate, it’s punished by execution. You’re a criminal and we’re going to die,” Chen whispered suddenly, sounding dead serious, having a momentary problem to inhale air and exist.

“Stop being an overdramatic shit, Government deserves the stealing and violation of their dumb laws,” Lu Han replied angrily, mystified as Jongdae’s reactions continued to confuse him. The boy seemed different and moody like water and fire, surprising with his untouchable tranquility and ability to be collected and cold at one moment, but hurting with his burning words and bruising fists at another. “No amount of stealing could ever compensate what humans did to me,” he whispered as an afterthought, a bitter look in his eyes somehow managing to anger secretly scared Chen even more.

“Whatever “humans” did to you couldn’t be so bad that you want them all dead. There are nice people as well, I personally know at least a number of them. People can be nice and cheerful and kind, and very positive, and they can make your heart feel nice things,” Chen told him, trailing off at the last words and yanking his wrist out of Lu Han’s soft grip, strange dangerous fires ignited in his eyes making the older cat boy frown. Chen was acting like a stubborn child, or Lu Han might have just wanted to see him as such; he could not allow himself to think that Jongdae could be right, that not all humans deserved punishments for mistreating the cat kin. Not now, when he had succeeded at his first stage, but seemed to be failing the second one, the one he had completely thrown out of his calculations; maintaining close friendly contact with the saved cat boy.

“I dreamed about having a good owner for a long time. Maybe, even for too long. I’ve always imagined him as someone nice and good-natured, someone very cuddly too. I just want to spend my life making someone happy just by being there for them. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, don’t look at me like that,” Chen said spitefully, sending a long pointed look at the mask of shocked disbelief on Lu Han’s face.

“But you’ve never had an owner. You simply don’t understand what you’re talking about,” he replied coldly, helplessly judgmental of the boy’s beliefs, distressing Chen, belatedly noticing the disappearing animating tails of the boy’s mouth into a set offended line.

The human girl returned to their table, bearing the plates with backed fish and mashed potatoes in thick vegetable sauce, balancing a jug of hot tea on the edge of the wooden tray. She winked at Jongdae, giggling at the awry blond wig, and as she set up the table, raised an eyebrow at Lu Han, presenting him with a cheeky interested smile. Her lips were of natural colour red, small plump mouth attractive on her round face; the human seemed really nice-looking even to Lu Han, so he hurried to drop his gaze away from her dimples, blindly staring into his steaming plate, blinking fast.

“What do you think of cat hybrids?”

Nonchalant notes in the hitch of his melodic voice, as Chen asked the human waitress the doomed question, made Lu Han forget about his appetite, foul sweat covering his back in sticky tape of fear. Horrified, he raised his scared confused eyes at the other cat boy who was looking up at the human with a charming smile, tails of his mouth hitched up higher than Lu Han had ever had the chance to witness before. He was talking to her so calmly; yet again his absolute calmness resulted in a cool collected stare and the firm grip on his fork, scandalized Lu Han out of his comfort zone, making him hit the other boy’s shins hard under the table, glare fuming as ever.

The human girl looked confused for a moment, glancing between the two boys, seemingly starting to feel affected by Chen’s open flirting as she unsurely cocked her head, replying that she had never given them much thought. She opened her luscious mouth in surprise, blinking, as Chen continued his verbal attack, stepping on Lu Han’s striking foot under the table, venturing to ask if the human girl had ever thought of getting a cat boy of her own. Chen poked at the fish as he listened, ravenously digging his fork into its baked head, white cooked eyeballs falling out and making Lu Han feel nauseous; he could not believe that the other boy was showing him that the game could be played by two in such a dangerous way.

The human girl replied carefully that cat hybrids were generally very expensive, and a simple waitress like her could never afford one; as an afterthought, after having cutely asked Lu Han to start on his delicious meal because the fish was getting cold, she cheerfully added that cat boys still seemed very attractive to her, and if she could ever get the chance to receive one as a present, she would be very happy, because they seemed very much like princes from chick flicks which she, however much shamefully so, really enjoyed reading in her spare time.

Her words made Lu Han’s stomach drop, as he stopped his slow chewing all together, looking up at the human with a gaze full of hatred, the word “present” ringing an alarm in his ears, usually incredibly rich in spiced taste fish now disgusting ash inside his mouth.

“Enough of hybrid talk, Jongdae. Let her go, she doesn’t want to answer you dumb questions,” he said suddenly, harshly demanding to cease the verbal assault in a voice that brooked no delay. The human female violator looked shocked for a moment, having not expected such a violent reaction from one of frequent visitors of the diner, and quietly backed away from the table, sending an apologetic nod to Chen.

Lu Han’s sharp eyes followed the human female into the kitchens; only after having made sure that she had disappeared behind the wooden doors, he turned to look at serious unmoving Chen messing with his mashed potatoes.

“Are you out of your mind? You’re insane? Suicidal? Simply dumb?” He asked slowly, the tone of his shaking voice cold, dangerous, disbelief stitched into his every question. Having gotten no visible or verbal reply from ignoring him Chen, Lu Han returned to poking at his fish, afraid that if he did not busy himself with the cold food in front of him, he would stab a fork through mournful Chen’s eye.

They finished eating in tensed silence, Lu Han habitually forcing down the whole meal, always haunted by the memories of hunger days from years ago when he found himself fallen into disgrace of his unmerciful human owner, Chen – only picking out the white meat around the bones. When the awkwardly looking human carefully came over to pick up the payment for their dishes, silent as she looked unsurely between the two displeased looking boys, she stretched her hand out for the coins, but Lu Han ignored the human violator’s gesture, placing the money on the table, missing the confused look of hurt on her face.

“Last question for tonight,” Chen suddenly looked revived as he turned to speak to the wary girl again, animated smile returning on his faked cheerful mask of an expression, even as he had to suppress a pained frown at the stab of aggravated Lu Han’s spiked sole into his knee under the table. “Imagine if the two of us were cat boys. Which one would you pick?”

Lu Han’s fist connected with the polished surface of the table with a loud resounding sound, managing to attract the attention of the human male cook who walked out into the hall, staring at the fuming boy in question, clearly displeased over the overemotional reaction. The human girl then blinked and walked away from their table, ranting on in an angry whisper how freakish both boys actually were, and that one could not trust anyone to be sane.

“Let’s go,” Lu Han hissed at the refusing to meet his eyes cat boy, grabbing him by the wrist and yanking him off his seat; Lu Han’s cat ears were itching under the unruly wig and hat protection, the fur of his tail soaked in sweat, unpleasantly plastered over his back inside the uncomfortable pants, as he sweated profusely due to the humid heat of the diner and his uncontrollable fit of rage. He pushed the strangely submissive boy out of the door, into the heavy blizzard and dragged them both to the safety of the hideout.

҉

The moment Lu Han fell through the door inside the dark room, mercilessly chilled to the bone, his autumnal coat dripping wet from the snow, the cat boy ran over to the gigantic frail bureau of old mahogany and yanked open one of the heavy drawers. Reaching inside for a little worn out sack with tobacco, he inhaled deeply, pressing the drug to the tip of his nose, the fetid scent closing in around him, managing to calm his nerves a little. Continuing to nose at the fabric filled with repugnant substance, he slowly undressed himself, one handedly peeling the layers of soaked clothing off, in unbreakable silence. Chen stood near the entrance, timid and quiet as he calmly dumped his jacket and the wig with hat over one of the shaky tables, seemingly unsure of the sort of change that had happened between them, not knowing what exact words to say to make Lu Han stop dozing off to a nasty drug.

Stretching his hand behind one of the back walls inside the bureau, a small vault hidden with a row of different books, Lu Han pulled out a stack of documents that proved his legal ownership over Chen and threw them on the chair behind, blind to the panicked look on the other cat boy’s face.

“I’m going to return you. It’s clear that you don’t want to be here. This whatever thing you have against me seems incredibly important to you, more important than your own safety. Unfortunately, I don’t have time or patience to deal with your issues. I’m returning you tomorrow because your stunts are too dangerous, so it will be better for us both. I hope this finally makes you happy.”

Lu Han sat down, turned away from the boy, refusing to acknowledge his existence, as he put the sack of tobacco away, patting at his own drenched underpants with a curse just to have something to busy his shaking hands with; until a moment later he heard a distinct sound of paper being ripped to hundred pieces.

“No, no, stop, what are you doing, idiot!”

Lu Han sprang up from his seat, kicking the chair away in his haste to get to Chen who was furiously tearing the documents into tiny pieces, throwing them in random bursts around the room as if to prevent Lu Han from gluing the papers back together. Lu Han jumped at the cat boy’s stiff back, tail swishing around him wildly, fighting the records out of the boy’s strong grip on them, their fingers ripping more high-quality sheets in the process; the taller boy cried out in pain when Chen teethed at his ear, backing momentarily disoriented Lu Han into the wall, completely mad scared look in his eyes as he continued to destroy the papers. Realizing that the documents could no longer be saved, Lu Han gave up and let go of the boy, breathing hard, slipping down the wall to sit on the dirty floor and watch in wary confusion as Chen ran over to the window and, having beaten the fragile chipped frame out with his elbow, threw the leftover pieces into the snowstorm to be lost and never found in the fields that spread around the city.

When Chen seemed completely sure that he had ruined all the legal papers, he leaned on the opposite wall from Lu Han, clutching his sides as if his hectic stunt of a violent attack made his insides boil. He breathed hard as he struggled out of his sweater and expensive thermal undershirt, spared to him by the generous Kissa Enterprise; as he eased his heavy winter pants off his body, his black tail curled around his thigh in a habitual soothing attempt at calmness.

“You’ve just ruined your chances at going back home. What got into you?” Lu Han voiced out the bugging him question, still staring wide-eyed at the exhausted looking cat boy, rewinding the events of the past five minutes in a cloudy daze, not having enough mind to believe what had then happened. He blinked when Chen gave out a croaked sound of laughter, his cat ears flaring.

“You don’t understand. There is no home to go back to. There is no such thing as “going back” for a cat toy,” he spat out loudly, glaring at Lu Han in disbelief at the other’s naïve attitude, shaking his head at the words that seemed to offend his very being. “If a cat toy gets returned, it gets sent off to a cat farm. It’s like a cat limbo on earth, a hell hole. For poor balls freezing existence in a prison in the middle of nowhere, where leftover cats leave only if someone rebuys them, or if people decide to sell them to another country. But who would rebuy a rejected toy. And cat export’s been doing pretty great selling off aristocrats. Like you.”

“But none of the newspapers or legal pacts from the library ever mentioned anything like that,” Lu Han was frowning, puzzled by the news the other boy was attacking him with. He had never heard of such institutions before, and their possible existence troubled him on impossible levels; he was stricken by immediate thoughts on needed changes in his plans, as at least half of his theories and calculations were suddenly making sense.

“No one ever mentions cat farms, they’re not exactly legal in other countries. Fortunately, the percentage of returned cats is not that big. Because they’re usually too scared to behave badly and disobey masters,” Chen added quietly, rubbing on his face in a certain act of annoyance, as he continued, not looking at Lu Han who had to bite his lips as he watched Chen’s tail clench the boy’s thigh so painfully hard, the skin turned deathly pale. “That’s why you and your sheer existence make me so mad and confused, and I can’t believe that someone like you exists. You were imported, right?”

Lu Han nodded dazedly, suddenly feeling squeamish, gripped by the foreboding that he would not like Chen’s next words, his tail tickling his arm as it pressed to his side, fulfilling its holder’s secret wish to crawl somewhere warm and secluded, and hide.

“You never lived at the breeder’s house, rooming with four other cat boys, trained to be a toy, to be silent, not to complain. It makes me so mad that you somehow managed to run away, not knowing the rules, not knowing the laws. You practically threatened other cats’ safety with your act. Imagine how many people would want to return their toys if you were caught red-handed, a robber and impudent hellbender. Fuck, you almost threw us all under a train, you realize that?”

Lu Han was frowning at the fluffy flakes of dust scattered around the floor, silent, conflicted over his own feelings; he had never thought of his action as of a possible awful threat to the cat society because his action had been a supposed act of resistance against the Human Government.

“Your flaming speech about having knowledge and projects seriously pissed me off, you know,” Chen was laughing at his own remark, hollow sound soft, a beautiful melody not meant for Lu Han’s ears, resounding inside the dark room, falling flat in the huge space between the boys, an abyss physical and mental. “You don’t know anything, Lu Han,” it was the first time Chen pronounced his name during a conversation, tails of his pretty mouth naturally curling upwards for the sake of a Kiinan sound, and Lu Han flinched, distracted. “You want to stir up a rebellion? No one will follow you. They’re all too scared of people to do anything with their lives. I’m scared too. Scared to the shiver in my fur. Because you dragged me into this mess, and now I’m an illegal cat myself.”

“You seem very stubborn for a submissive cat toy you’re supposed to be. You were named a cat conundrum in the catalogue, did you know that?” Lu Han stared with distrust at the seemingly pessimistic boy, who gave a guttural moan and covered his face in embarrassment at that. “Is that why you were at the end of the list? Because you only know how to talk back and say no to everyone’s suggestions?”

“Maybe,” Chen, eyes disappearing into sharp slits, presented him with a wide mocking smile, letting it die the moment displeased Lu Han wrinkled his nose at the sarcastic act. “Or may it be, I turned up at the end of the stupid list because I loved one of the caretakers. No, we are not talking about it. He was a human, I was a teenager, we all make mistakes,” the boy turned his head down, picking at his pointy tail, as if afraid to see the possible judgment in the other’s eyes.

Lu Han felt his fast beating heart sink into his ribcage, falling through his stomach, as pity covered the yawning hole, transparent horror filling up his lungs, as he choked on his spit. Those few sentences explained a lot of things and answered a fair number of questions about Chen’s actions; why he had been so disappointed to learn that Lu Han was not a human, but a cat, why he had been so devastated to discover that he would never realize his dream of being a part of some human’s life. It was clear why Chen found Lu Han’s dismissive attitude towards humans so aggravating, why he acted like a spoilt child.

He could not return the boy back to the safety of the breeder’s institution. They were stuck together from then on. Somehow, the thought gave Lu Han more comfort, than trouble, as he found himself eventually liking the way Chen talked so confidently and how he posed himself, even though the boy’s flippant attitude was grating his nerves. He had a strong presence in the room when he wanted it, and seemed stubborn about his beliefs, even if they were contradicting with Lu Han’s.

“What happened to that boy?” He asked carefully, standing up and coming over to sit near Chen, evoking a surprised reaction from the brooding boy, who flinched further into the wall, but did not try to run away. Lu Han accepted the lukewarm gesture as one at a peace-making attempt.

“Nothing. He shrugged and said that it was impossible, like, dating an animal, and moved on, changed his job. While I got the shorter end of the stick which brought punishments from the other caretakers and mockery from other cat guys for liking a human.” Chen trailed off, his cold unseeing glare frozen on the spot above Lu Han’s head, full of bitter memories about that particularly unfair part of his life. The fur on his cat ears suddenly bristled when the boy sent Lu Han a fleeting look and read pity in the pout on his face; it seemed like he could bear being pitied even less than feeling forced, so Chen continued, the honey sound of his voice like trickling venom.

“There are a lot of assholes in the cat world that don’t really deserve saving, but you wouldn’t know that now, would you? Because you’ve lived you whole life with a silver spoon in your mouth, Amaryllis.”

The words said with so much offensive ignorance made Lu Han’s blood curdle, as he struggled to gulp down a sudden lump the size of his heart. Belatedly comprehending how unnecessarily unfair he had just been when he acted upon another one of his anger fits, Chen lowered his gaze to the floor, guilt clearly demonstrated in the immediate dropping of his cat ears down onto his head. But as much as Lu Han could want to appreciate momentarily cute Chen, offence painfully corroded into his insides.

“Of course, I’m the one who doesn’t know anything. Not about your world at the breeder’s. Not about your past crushes. But do you know anything about me? Don’t be so generous with useless words. Say, have you, the omniscient entity, ever heard of illegal copulation? This thing where they bring together a cat girl and a cat boy of different species and make them fuck to produce an interspecies child? And they’re forced to meet many times until, finally, the cat girl gets pregnant, and they don’t need the boy anymore, so his owners take him away, and he never meets the girl or his child? Well, I’m a father, and you’re a dickwad.”

Exhausted with the emotional stress Chen had managed to settle right into his heart, Lu Han stormed out of the room, with his tail comfortingly curled around his waist, doubting if the other boy of such unpleasant nature would ever be able to make a single adequate effort at their necessary friendship.

҉

Another unnerving morning exhaled frozen freshness into Lu Han’s opened windows, blowing winter into his ear, making the boy jump awake in a fit of cold shivers, the bones in his neck cracking, shoulders numb; he had fallen asleep on the papers with his redrawn plannings, in the chair at his table. As he stretched, squeezing his eyes at the painful tugs resounding through every muscle in his body, he heard a rustling sound and noticed an old dusty moth-eaten carpet slip off his chair. Confused, still half-asleep, he blinked at the cloth, having no memories of ever touching the commonly looking thing that had been lying around in his heavily furnished room for ages.

“Sorry, I covered you at night because you were clutching at your own tail, so I thought maybe you were cold.”

Disoriented, monstrously unruly tail fluffed, Lu Han jumped away from the melodic sound, knocking the creaking chair down, his elbow painfully smacked into the wooden wardrobe. He wrinkled his nose at the pang, seeing Chen in the corner of his watery eye; the timid boy, fully dressed, with his cute small ears twitching nervously, stood unusually close, the small distance between them making Lu Han flinch further into the hard wood of the wardrobe at his back.

“What were you doing in my room at night?” He asked suspiciously, his tongue like cotton, as he screwed his puffy eyes at the strangely amicable boy, pointedly backing away from guilty looking Chen, memories of last night still fresh and smarting in his mind.

“I wanted to talk,” Chen said seriously, taking a big step towards wary Lu Han to give the boy a small dry bottle of milk for breakfast. “I wiped it, I hate it when bottles are all wet,” he murmured an explanation, smiling a little when kind-natured boy Lu Han sighed exasperatedly and took the stretched out peace-offering. The tails of Jongdae’s mouth curled up, thin lips in the shape of a tiny pink boat, as his talking eyes spoke volumes of things he could probably never phrase well enough; Lu Han could only gape at the cat boy’s prominent features, not able to stay offended when the other was finally showing a possible interest in the development of their permanent alliance.

“I didn’t sleep all night, I’ve seriously thought about it, and suddenly realized that I can help you with something. I might not agree with your ideas and theories, but I can’t just waste my life under a blanket. Got to help with whatever I can help with. But before that,” he looked at his socked feet for a single moment as if hoping they could give him the needed courage, blinked in a flutter of bushy eyelashes, and continued, sounding resigned. “I want to apologize. I’m sorry that I’m such an asshole. I’ve always been one, part of the reason I was forever at the end of the list. You look so young, I’ve never thought that something so horrible could have happened to you. It’s kind of… hard to think of you as a father now, to be honest.”

“But I’m not a real father. I’ve never even gotten the chance to actually see the child. It’s okay though. It’s not hard to lose something that you’ve never had,” Lu Han replied quietly, his tail pleasurably crawling up his back, as a strange warm feeling diffused inside his chest, and he felt secure enough to give the other boy a smile. He had a momentary shock at the understanding that it was the very first time his Jongdae was willingly smiling at him since they got to learn about each other’s existence three days ago.

“Don’t think that you’re the only one with the talking back problem though.”

Lu Han smiled cheekily at the question in Jongdae’s eyes and winked, as he tugged his foxy luxurious tail into his hand, combing through the coarse wavy fur at the curling tip; a second of desperate fighting with his own hair, and Lu Han was presenting Jongdae with the blunt uneven ending of his tail, a reminding shadow of past abuse. It looked deformed, as if someone had cut it off and wrapped in quick bandages, so it had gotten healed all shaggy, an ugly patch, with the help of time, hidden from strange eyes by the overpowering fur.

Jongdae stared at the disfigured apex and, after sending a quick look at Lu Han’s unsuspecting face, poked the furless place with his unceremonious finger, curious as he murmured a low “wow”. Lu Han blushed as an unexpected awakening feeling resonated through his body; he had to slap the mischievous palm away, not wishing to indulge Jongdae in further explorations of his sensitive tail.

“You said that you wanted to tell me something that could help me. Does it have to do with my mission, because now that I have you, however unwilling you might be, I will get you to tell me all the vital information about the breeders. I know it’s hard to start on something so serious, and I’ve thought of giving up numerous times, and our preparations will require a lot of time, some of which will eventually turn out unnecessary in the end. But I’m willing to try and I’ve never been surer. Because you’re the main sign that my calculations were correct, you’re the proof that my theories on the human nature were right as well,” Lu Han ranted, passing the room with his fluffy tail conducting the infinite way behind his back, swinging his hands around like windmills, almost catching Jongdae on the nose with the neck of the still untouched milk bottle. Jongdae coughed to attract the other’s attention before he could venture into explanations, but in vain.

“I actually… have an acquaintance that would, probably, be glad to know about the possibility of a rebellion,” Jongdae said loudly in a serious voice, interrupting Lu Han’s disinteresting profuse talk, managing to put the taller cat boy’s whole body on a pause. “You might even have heard of him? A ferocious guy, if you imagine a broken out riot, you think of him fighting people in the very middle. His named used to be Zitao when he was at the breeder’s, but after he had been bought out with quite a tidy sum for the uniqueness of his breed, I think they renamed him into Edison. Or something even more ridiculous. The point is that I actually know where he lives. I heard the caretakers gossiping about him a lot.”

Jongdae had to cry out in surprise, eyes widening, when weirdly looking Lu Han crossed the small space between them and tugged him into a painful clutching embrace, and the metallic threading of the lid dug into the boy’s right shoulder blade. His Jongdae awkwardly tried to wriggle his pained shoulder away from the accidental abuse but Lu Han saw nothing, only squeezed his cat boy even harder, allowing the emotions he had been keeping sealed for several long months to break through his outwardly cheerful appearance.

“You don’t understand how happy you’ve made me, Jongdae,” he whispered vulnerability into the cat boy’s unwashed hair, ecstatic about the other’s sheer presence by his side, gently nuzzling into the smelly head of his genuinely confused Jongdae.

Lu Han would not feel alone anymore.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _The Dictionary:_  
>  All foreign words used in the fic belong to the beautiful Finnish language :)  
> Kylmä - Cold  
> Kissa - Cat  
> Kiinan - Chinese  
> Kahvila - café  
> Sota - War
> 
>  _The additional notes:_  
>  Kylmä is a wonderful town that exists solely in my imagination. I used Iceland's [Reykjavik](https://www.google.ru/search?q=reykjavik&newwindow=1&biw=1366&bih=653&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NtxWVM6kFo32O8bqgdgE&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg) as reference for the [scenery](https://www.google.ru/search?q=reykjavik&newwindow=1&biw=1366&bih=653&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NtxWVM6kFo32O8bqgdgE&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#newwindow=1&tbm=isch&q=reykjavik+night) descriptions.  
> [Cynosura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynosura) is the name of the Northern country that exists solely in my imagination. It's a sort of play of words because Cynosura is an alternative name of the Polaris, the Polar star (which screams north and cold), but it also translates as 'dog's tail' from Greek, so yes. Cat society in a dog country. (i smart)  
> [Amaryllis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaryllis) is a stunning red flower that symbolizes pride, determination and radiant beauty.
> 
> You can read my other fiction at [LJ](http://chenis.livejournal.com/)


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